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Greetings from San Francisco. I'm thrilled to have discovered Barbelith and am looking forward to a long, lusty relationship with each and every one of you. Er, you know what I mean.
I'm fascinated by the discussion of the derogatory use of the word "gay." It's used here synonymously with other evolving pejoratives like "retarded" and "lame." On some of the message boards that draw teenagers, it's often spelled with many A's, as in "gaaaaay." It's also used as a sort of chorus, where several teens will look at each other and in unison, reacting to something they feel is ridiculous or stupid, cry out "gaaaay," followed by rolling eyes or lip smacking. I live in the Castro, a gay stronghold, and hear it used more commonly by gays than by straights (teenagers at the Mission High School excepted). The use is almost always associated with the ridiculous instead of the "bad." I suppose that in some sense gays are seen as ridiculous. I'm a gay man and I'm quite ridiculous. My gay roommate has often referred to me as "gay" without referring to sexuality at all.
I think Gertrude Stein is credited with the first use in American fiction of the word gay, back in 1922, in a Vanity Fair short story whose name escapes me. A friend in Montreal told me that the Quebecois are actually beginning to draw a distinction between "gai," from Continental "gaie," to mean "homosexual, and "gay" pronounced the same way, but with the ridiculous or bad connotation of which we've spoken. How odd!
A number of American publications geared toward gay teenagers, such as YGA or XY, often write about the odd contradiction between budding gay youths and their use and/or perception of the word. For instance, many gay youths, particularly in urban black and Latino communities, are comfortable with their attractions to the same sex, but would not identify with being gay. This isn't out of shame, I don't believe, but because they haven't yet been instructed by society to steadfastly and inarguably identify themselves with a word label. Lest you counter that it's merely self-preservation, these findings stem from research in environments where there is no threat of reprisal.
These same teens will use the word "gay" in the "ridiculous" sense of the word and look at you "queerly" if you were to say that their sexual attraction to a hot classmate of the same sex makes them (drumroll please) "GAY." It's a perplexing and encouraging form of naivete that, alas, never lasts very long, particularly once they become synchronized with the social complexities and comformities of high school. I'd argue that this naivete is more common in relatively enlightened environments, usually large cities, where young people are more commonly exposed to "regular" gay folk and the notion of being gay is not alien or utterly fearful.
Did you know that it wasn't until 1984 that The Wall Street Journal permitted the use of the word "gay" by its writers? That's right, EIGHTY-four. Of course, I don't think any of them are using it in the pejorative sense, but it's an interesting factoid. And while many scholars refute the idea that Jesus condemned or even MENTIONED homosexuality, the occasion of the word "racha" in New Testament Matthew suggests that Jesus condemned the use of anti-gay slurs to insult people. I'm not convinced of this argument, since I do not believe that homosexual consciousness was even remotely developed at that time in history, and Jesus' intent may be taken or intepreted entirely incorrectly.
Well, I don't want my first post to be a neverending story, so I'll shut up for now. Nice to meet you all. I've really enjoyed reading your posts. Cheers. |
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